As Valve confirms the Steam Box, Microsoft's Phil Harrison issues a warning"Entering the hardware business is a really tough business," he said. "You have to have great fortitude to be in the hardware business and you have to have deep pockets and a very strong balance sheet. It's not possible for every new hardware entrant to get to scale."They can be successful at small scale. But it's very rare for a new hardware entrant to get to scale, and I mean tens or hundreds of millions of units. There are a very small number of companies that can make that happen.http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-01-10-as-valve-confirms-the-steam-box-microsofts-phil-harrison-issues-a-warning
Gabe Newell: Steam Box's biggest threat isn't consoles, it's AppleThe biggest danger facing the success of Steam Box or any other PC ecosystem hoping to find space in the living room is Apple, according to a lecture given by Valve co-founder Gabe Newell to a class at the University of Texas' LBJ School of Public Affairs."The threat right now is that Apple has gained a huge amount of market share, and has a relatively obvious pathway towards entering the living room with their platform," Newell said. "I think that there's a scenario where we see sort of a dumbed down living room platform emerging — I think Apple rolls the console guys really easily. The question is can we make enough progress in the PC space to establish ourselves there, and also figure out better ways of addressing mobile before Apple takes over the living room?"http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/30/3934112/gabe-newell-steam-boxs-biggest-threat-isnt-consoles-its-apple
